The Duke of Lancaster
- Thread starter Alpha1
- Start date
retroshaun
Active member
Awesome. The best part is - I actually went to that ship on a holiday in Wales once when I was maybe 12 or so... and I can VIVIDLY remember playing a Battlezone cabaret until my parents got bored and dragged me out of the arcade. Its probably one of the ones you rescued! I think they were doing clay pigeon shooting on the deck to IIRC. Awesome memories, great pics!
Very cool.
I had a sort of related experience some years ago on the FSO Safer, which is permanently moored in the sea just of the coast of Yemen and is used as an oil storage terminal. It's filled with crude and other ships dock alongside and are filled up from it. At the time, at about 400m long, it was the 6th largest ship in the world.
Here's some pics:
They flew me onto the ship in a helicopter and I got the pilot to fly round so I could take some pics.
Note the pivot at the front of the ship...the boat can swivel 360 degrees round it. The oil is pumped on board there.
I was replacing all the control systems on it for the oil pipeline monitoring. They were going to send me these original IBM PCs that were to be junked, but they never arrived. They're probably in the sea now.
A view out of the bridge, I kipped there overnight and a ship was being filled up with oil the next morning.
Yup, that's me in the officers mess, they had a chef on there for us. It was built in the 70's and the decor is perfectly authentic
The engine room was 6 stories high.
I went for a wander around on the deck.
No arcade games on there, but happy dayz nonetheless...
D-T
I had a sort of related experience some years ago on the FSO Safer, which is permanently moored in the sea just of the coast of Yemen and is used as an oil storage terminal. It's filled with crude and other ships dock alongside and are filled up from it. At the time, at about 400m long, it was the 6th largest ship in the world.
Here's some pics:
They flew me onto the ship in a helicopter and I got the pilot to fly round so I could take some pics.
Note the pivot at the front of the ship...the boat can swivel 360 degrees round it. The oil is pumped on board there.
I was replacing all the control systems on it for the oil pipeline monitoring. They were going to send me these original IBM PCs that were to be junked, but they never arrived. They're probably in the sea now.
A view out of the bridge, I kipped there overnight and a ship was being filled up with oil the next morning.
Yup, that's me in the officers mess, they had a chef on there for us. It was built in the 70's and the decor is perfectly authentic
The engine room was 6 stories high.
I went for a wander around on the deck.
No arcade games on there, but happy dayz nonetheless...
D-T
retroshaun
Active member
Alpha1 said:
I know, its crazy. I may be wrong but I actually think I probably have some old family pics from there too... stored way the hell up in the loft somewhere in the UK. Gonna take a look next time I am back UK-side.
Who got the BZ's? Would love to play them again, 30 years later!
Its crazy because I recognized some of the pictures (specifically the one with the games near the windows in the corridor) and thats where the BZ was standing that I played. I can hardly remember what happened last week, but I remember this vividly. Really cool.
Update
So I phoned them the next day. I was still on a high, but that was soon to finish as I went through 8 months of getting absolutely nowhere. I was confronted with valuations from sites that had been seen on the internet to £2000 for a Space Invaders and hardly ever got a call back.
I tried everything, including designing a website for them and giving them email hosting as well as cash..
..And in October 2011, I gave up. I couldn't do it anymore. I had a family and so stopped phoning. I honestly thought the games were going to rot or lay hidden and unclaimed forever..
Then last month I was pm'd by a member on here, alerting me to the fact Home Leisure Direct had been contacted by the owners and they were requesting valuations on some of the games.
What?!? This can't be? Crazy! I messaged him and warned him of the stress he would face, but was alerted to the fact they had indeed contacted him.
Hmmm.... So they really are ready to sell them?
I phoned...
I spoke to them, they had, would you believe it, lost my number!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I BLOODY COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!!
So I started talking again, and I got put in communication with yet another family member... And we agreed that I would go and visit the ship again, to make sure the games were still in the same condition, and then we could discuss price.
At this point I spoke to Andy-Pac and asked if it was ok to talk to them, he said he would not make an offer as good as a collective of arcade collectors could and was happy to stand aside, and even held off other people enquiring for me. <----------- this is epic - Thank YOU so much Andy, you helped here soo soo much.
so we went back...
And this is what we saw
People had been stealing windows from the ship as they are made out of brass and worth a lot of money for scrap. Water was getting in... The games had been moved over to a safer part of the arcade floor but man, they wouldn't last much longer...
This picture shows best how close the games were to getting water damaged.. We got there just in time. The flash of the camera makes the damp floor actually look worse than it is but we had to act fast..
We moved any games near the damp parts to a safe area.
We had gone through our checklist and all the games were still there. In fact the Space Invaders Part II now had a pcb! It never had one before!!
We said our goodbyes and I said I would call him tomorrow..
update to follow..
Alpha12012-02-07 17:45:18
So I phoned them the next day. I was still on a high, but that was soon to finish as I went through 8 months of getting absolutely nowhere. I was confronted with valuations from sites that had been seen on the internet to £2000 for a Space Invaders and hardly ever got a call back.
I tried everything, including designing a website for them and giving them email hosting as well as cash..
..And in October 2011, I gave up. I couldn't do it anymore. I had a family and so stopped phoning. I honestly thought the games were going to rot or lay hidden and unclaimed forever..
Then last month I was pm'd by a member on here, alerting me to the fact Home Leisure Direct had been contacted by the owners and they were requesting valuations on some of the games.
What?!? This can't be? Crazy! I messaged him and warned him of the stress he would face, but was alerted to the fact they had indeed contacted him.
Hmmm.... So they really are ready to sell them?
I phoned...
I spoke to them, they had, would you believe it, lost my number!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I BLOODY COULDN'T BELIEVE IT!!!
So I started talking again, and I got put in communication with yet another family member... And we agreed that I would go and visit the ship again, to make sure the games were still in the same condition, and then we could discuss price.
At this point I spoke to Andy-Pac and asked if it was ok to talk to them, he said he would not make an offer as good as a collective of arcade collectors could and was happy to stand aside, and even held off other people enquiring for me. <----------- this is epic - Thank YOU so much Andy, you helped here soo soo much.
so we went back...
And this is what we saw
People had been stealing windows from the ship as they are made out of brass and worth a lot of money for scrap. Water was getting in... The games had been moved over to a safer part of the arcade floor but man, they wouldn't last much longer...
This picture shows best how close the games were to getting water damaged.. We got there just in time. The flash of the camera makes the damp floor actually look worse than it is but we had to act fast..
We moved any games near the damp parts to a safe area.
We had gone through our checklist and all the games were still there. In fact the Space Invaders Part II now had a pcb! It never had one before!!
We said our goodbyes and I said I would call him tomorrow..
update to follow..
Alpha12012-02-07 17:45:18
Update
So! We finally agreed on a price! There actually was some last minute negotiations and we had to pay more because other people were trying to get in on the deal, but it all worked out!
WE HAD AGREED A PRICE!
All I had to do was agree a date to get them! and that's when he told me.
"You have 10 days to get them out due to work that will happen on the ship. Once this work starts the games will go down with the ship..."
Yowser..
"Oh, and you'll need a crane, that's a pre-requisite to the deal"
Oh Crap.
Sooooooooooo, I made a final last ditch attempt to save the games. I got everyone to buy into the games, the first forum based UKVAC bulk deal! We had done others back in the days of the list of course, but this one was extra special.
I frantically made everyone pay as soon as possible and get confirmation of their vans for hire - Rav was particularly a great help here (cheers duder!) and helped organise people like Martin the Deliveryman and others. He also sorted out our van hire.
I some how managed to get a site survey done the VERY NEXT DAY for the crane hire. I got a phone call, it was all good. We were all set.
I phoned and confirmed we would be there for the 4th of February at 8am.
THE DATE WAS SET!!
So! We finally agreed on a price! There actually was some last minute negotiations and we had to pay more because other people were trying to get in on the deal, but it all worked out!
WE HAD AGREED A PRICE!
All I had to do was agree a date to get them! and that's when he told me.
"You have 10 days to get them out due to work that will happen on the ship. Once this work starts the games will go down with the ship..."
Yowser..
"Oh, and you'll need a crane, that's a pre-requisite to the deal"
Oh Crap.
Sooooooooooo, I made a final last ditch attempt to save the games. I got everyone to buy into the games, the first forum based UKVAC bulk deal! We had done others back in the days of the list of course, but this one was extra special.
I frantically made everyone pay as soon as possible and get confirmation of their vans for hire - Rav was particularly a great help here (cheers duder!) and helped organise people like Martin the Deliveryman and others. He also sorted out our van hire.
I some how managed to get a site survey done the VERY NEXT DAY for the crane hire. I got a phone call, it was all good. We were all set.
I phoned and confirmed we would be there for the 4th of February at 8am.
THE DATE WAS SET!!
So a few days passed.. and then it was time to go saves the games!
Rav picked me up directly from work, we had decided to go up the night before so we could be fresh faced and on site ready for 8am!
Unfortunately the bar at the hotel was open all night... So we stayed up drinking untill 1:30AM.
Ooops.
We got up early (well some of us hey Backflipper ;-) ) and made our way to the ship!
HOLY CRAP THE CRANE HAD TURNED UP! I have to admit that was my biggest fear, and also rain, snow, the games were water damaged since our last visit, had been damaged by vandals, you name it - I had all those fears. This was quite a lot to take on with about 15 peoples expectations having to be met.
And of course I had all their money. I had been carrying it since getting it out of the bank on the Friday. I walked everywhere with my bag, refusing to leave it anywhere.
And now the everyone else was turning up, we went and checked the games, confirmed they were all OK. I paid the crane driver and paid the owner for the games and we then started to unload the Duke of Lancaster of her games. It was really really cool. I don't think anyone has ever used a crane before on a raid hehe.
Anyhow. Enjoy the pix.
I have some videos i'll upload to You Tube soon.
Stay Tuned. I hope you enjoyed the thread.
Alpha12012-02-07 18:16:47
Rav picked me up directly from work, we had decided to go up the night before so we could be fresh faced and on site ready for 8am!
Unfortunately the bar at the hotel was open all night... So we stayed up drinking untill 1:30AM.
Ooops.
We got up early (well some of us hey Backflipper ;-) ) and made our way to the ship!
HOLY CRAP THE CRANE HAD TURNED UP! I have to admit that was my biggest fear, and also rain, snow, the games were water damaged since our last visit, had been damaged by vandals, you name it - I had all those fears. This was quite a lot to take on with about 15 peoples expectations having to be met.
And of course I had all their money. I had been carrying it since getting it out of the bank on the Friday. I walked everywhere with my bag, refusing to leave it anywhere.
And now the everyone else was turning up, we went and checked the games, confirmed they were all OK. I paid the crane driver and paid the owner for the games and we then started to unload the Duke of Lancaster of her games. It was really really cool. I don't think anyone has ever used a crane before on a raid hehe.
Anyhow. Enjoy the pix.
I have some videos i'll upload to You Tube soon.
Stay Tuned. I hope you enjoyed the thread.
Alpha12012-02-07 18:16:47
Jodo said:
see http://www.dragonslairfans.com/smfor/index.php?topic=3346.0! to me already the greatest roadtrip report ever!!!
stevearcade
The Trevor Horn of UKVAC
This whole thing is quite simply incredible. That thread over on DL is great. The number of cabs, the condition of the cabs, the games in question, their surreal location (a beached ocean liner) and the madness of it coming together with a crane etc within the space of just a few days is all simply incredible. People coming together from across Europe to make this happen. The dedication is simply brilliant. Well done to all involved and keep on with the posts of pictures and dramatic story telling.
